


Natural Justice

by flavinja



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Summer before 7th year, american vandal AU, or that's what it was supposed to be before i started writing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 13:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16641104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flavinja/pseuds/flavinja
Summary: In English law, natural justice is technical terminology for the rule against bias (nemo iudex in causa sua) and the right to a fair hearing (audi alteram partem). //Sirius Black has been accused of a crime he didn't commit. Luckily for him, James Potter and Lily Evans are not going to just accept such injustice.





	Natural Justice

“We’re here to present our case in defence of Sirius Black,” Lily started, looking at the table of professors that were staring at her with attention. Behind her, Sirius and James were putting a board up, full of pictures and information Lily thought would help everyone to visualize it.

Lily felt completely inadequate in her position. When Potter came to her in the last week of term and begged her to help prove Sirius’ innocence to the school board, Lily said he was crazy. During their sixth year, Lily had become friendlier toward the self-nominated Marauders, but she was far from being part of their group. And really, shouldn’t they just hire a lawyer if it was that serious?

But then James explained how the Black family couldn’t care less about Sirius’s education and Sirius refused to bother Euphemia Potter with it. This was especially true after James’s father had passed away less than one month before and her health wasn’t great either. They both agreed not to involve Mama Potter until it was strictly necessary.

Lily was still not convinced what she had to do with any of that, she was just seventeen years-old.

“They don’t even have any evidence, Evans! Don’t you think that’s unfair? That they are just going to expel Sirius based on his previous actions and not even let him defend himself?” Potter had screamed at her, “Dumbledore refuses to listen to us, says we’re biased. But he’d listen to you! We all know you’re going to be Head Girl next year, everyone trusts your judgement.” He paused for a moment, his voice getting softer when he continued. “Please, Evans, I’m begging you. Sirius didn’t do it. He was on probation!”

“I wouldn’t risk it,” Sirius said, for the first time trying to defend himself, “I know I look guilty and my record speaks for itself. But I didn’t do it this time.”

She asked them to review the case for her once more and once it was clear the board truly didn’t have enough evidence, Lily was convinced. Being a muggleborn, she was no stranger to injustices and she couldn’t be true to herself if she just turned away when someone needed her. 

And, like that, she was on the case. She went to see Dumbledore and convinced him to let her present Sirius defence over summer vacations – they had until the third week of July to come up with something.

Now she stood in front of most of her professors at school, all staring at her with expecting eyes. She took a deep breath, trying to control her twisting stomach, and took a step forward.

“The board has probably heard about the events that took place on June 2nd, but I will remind you of all the facts known to us,” she started.

 

***

 

The facts were simple: someone had contaminated all the breakfast food with some kind of poison, making all the students and even some professors sick. People threw up all over the food, and at some point, it was difficult to determine whether people were throwing up because of the food or because seeing other people throwing up made them sick as well.

The Gryffindor table was the least affected by it, which made everyone suspect one of its students was behind the poisoning. Lily herself had not even started eating when the first student in Slytherin threw up. People were running all over the castle, trying to get to the infirmary.

That would have been bad enough – over a hundred people sick, a lot more than Poppy could handle – but they just didn’t stop throwing up. A few first and second years had to be sent to St. Mungos because of dehydration. Later professor Slughorn would try to determine what caused the sickness and would conclude whoever did it probably made some mistake that made it even worse, which was why none of the usual antidotes would work.

During lunch, a lot of people feared eating. A couple of students threw up after it, but it was still unclear whether it was a psychological effect or there were still traces of the poison. Nevertheless, the house-elves threw all the food away in desperation and made all new ones.

Sirius hadn’t been seen until after it was chaos in the dining hall. Avery claimed he bumped into Sirius as he ran to the restroom and Sirius had laughed and pointed at him.

“He looked stupid,” Sirius defended himself when Lily pointed this out.

“Avery always looks stupid,” James completed. “I would have laughed too, it doesn’t make me guilty.”

The reason most people believed it was Sirius who had done it was simple: it was the kind of thing he would do. The Marauders were known for being “pranksters”, which would go from some funny lines during classes to what Lily would better define as bullying. That combined with the fact that the Slytherin table seemed to be the target, while Gryffindor’s was barely affected, and that none of Sirius’ best friends were present at the time seemed to be enough to convince most of the student’ body of Sirius’ guilt.

But the most damaging thing for Sirius was his access to the kitchen. The boy was a frequent visitor of the kitchens according to the house-elves, and even worse, had been there in the early morning, while breakfast was still being prepared.

 “What the hell were you even doing in the kitchens at four a.m?”

“I was hungry, is that a crime? Peter was with me the whole time!” Sirius claimed, but Lily just stared at him in response. Peter was definitely not a credible witness when it came to his friends, he’d lie without a problem if it made Sirius look innocent. “Tell her how we always go to the kitchens, Prongs!”

“We do always go,” James said, shrugging. “Sirius brought me a sandwich.”

Normally, James would have been accused right with his best friend, but he hadn’t been in the kitchens for at least a couple days before it happened. This was all documented because James had tried to confess the prank as his alone, but Dumbledore refused to accept his confession. The house-elves had provided a list of everyone who had recently visited the kitchens, and he wasn’t included.

“Why would you need to eat a couple hours before breakfast? You weren’t even supposed to be awake at this time. You do see how bad this looks for you, right?”

“Okay, so we were out of bed during curfew, this doesn’t make me guilty!”

“Come on Evans, we do that often! You can ask the house-elves, we never messed with food before.”

“Not since third year, at least,” Sirius completed. “That prank was totally not my style anymore,” he said and when the other two teens rolled their eyes at him, he continued “That is, my current style is not pranking at all. I am an example to be followed.”

“But you guys were doing something out of bed,” Lily insisted, “No one just wakes up at four in the morning and decides to go eat. Every time you’re out of dorms during curfew, you are doing something. It looks suspicious.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? It wasn’t doing _that._ ”

“It might work as an alibi. We need to show there was another reason for you to be around the kitchens that was not poisoning the food.”

“It wouldn’t help him if we revealed, just don’t focus on that,” Potter says. “We have to look into who could have done it if not Sirius.”

That was the biggest question. The last ones to visit the kitchen were indeed Sirius and Peter, but a lot of students were there in the 24 hours before the poisoning, around ten in total. Lily looked at the notebook she kept with all the names in it. James looked at it over her shoulder

“I think we can eliminate any Hufflepuff from the list,” James commented, making Sirius laugh.

“Really? This is not the time for jokes.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be loyal and kind? Why would they poison people from their own house?”

“I’m not sure if we should take houses’ descriptions that seriously,” Lily paused. “But you’re right, it doesn’t feel like any Hufflepuff would do this. Especially not these ones,” she added, noting that one of the Hufflepuffs in question was the former Head-Girl.

Lily wasn’t close friends with her, but she knew enough to know she wouldn’t do anything like that. If she wasn’t mistaken the other Hufflepuffs seemed to be friends with the Head-Girl, so it was likely they had all gone to the kitchens together. That eliminated all Hufflepuffs but one, who Lily only knew as a quiet fourth-year boy.

“We have to consider that there might be people who visited the kitchens who aren’t on this list,” James pointed out.

“Dumbledore himself gave me this list,” Lily explained, “He talked to all the house-elves. And they guaranteed they would know anyone who visited.”

“The house-elves don’t know everything,” James insisted, “Someone may have entered with an invisibility spell… or cloak,” he completed, looking bashful for a second. Lily narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m just saying… There _might_ be people in the castle in possession of such devices, so we should consider it.”

“Did you go to the kitchens with your cloak, Prongs?” Sirius asked, a grin on his face that told Lily he already knew the answer, James just smacked him in return, “Then no one did. There’s no one else with an invisibility cloak at Hogwarts. I’d know by now.”

“You don’t know everything!” James argued and, somehow, Sirius looked ready to dispute that fact, “If you did, we wouldn’t be here trying to figure out who did this.”

“Point taken.”

Lily just stared at them during this interaction. She had heard about this invisibility cloak before, of course. While James liked to act as it was a big secret it had been the subjects of rumours for years around Gryffindor students. Marlene had guaranteed she had once seen it in Fifth year, but Lily was hesitant to believe it. Sure, it would explain how he and he friends managed to get away with so much trouble, but an invisible cloak? There was no way someone would trust a teenager - Potter especially - with such an item around Hogwarts, right?

“Please tell me you do not have an invisibility cloak,” Lily said, finally.

“I cannot confirm or deny…”

Lily just groaned and buried her head in her arms. If the board heard about it, they might just end up expelling both James and Sirius instead of annulling Sirius’ expulsion.

“Why are you making this so much harder?!” she snapped, “Just don’t mention it to the board. Ever. Don’t bring this idea up, it’s going to backfire.”

James held his arms up, in fake innocence, making Sirius laugh. Lily was just tired of them not taking this seriously. She said as much to them, just to receive an annoying pun as an answer followed by an apology.

“We need to focus on this list,” she said again, waving the paper she had in her hands, “Even the Hufflepuffs, as unlikely as it is. We need to think of any motives they could have had. Anything plausible.”

It was no easy task, they went through each of the Hufflepuffs and a couple Ravenclaws. Sirius could come up with the most insane motives, which was great because it gave them options, but it was also terrible because it was almost impossible to consider them even a bit likely to happen. Yes, maybe the Head-Girl just went crazy with power and this was a statement on how much pressure they put on students. But who would ever believe it? Not Lily.

“What if the house-elves did it?” Sirius added, “They are capable of it! If you ever met Kreacher, you’d agree,” he said when Lily just rolled her eyes.

“Let’s just go to the Slytherins, I’m sure we’ll be able to find a lot more motives,” James said, trying to get the paper out of Lily’s hands, but she refused to let it go.

“I need you to try to be unbiased for this,” she warned them, and when James and Sirius just narrowed their eyes in distrust, she sighed. “Severus is in the list.”

“Snivellus?! Why did we even waste our time doing this, he did it!” Sirius yelled, grabbing the paper from Lily’s hand, much to her protest. “I can’t believe you let me talk all this time about obviously innocent Hufflepuffs when the real villain was here the entire time! This is just like him!”

“I bet he framed you!” James completed, “It makes so much sense. After Dumbledore told him you would be on probation…”

“That little shit! See, this is why you shou-” Sirius yelled just to be met with a glare from James. “Sorry, I don’t mean it. You know it, Prongs. I just can’t believe I didn’t see it coming!”

Lily frowned as she tried to understand this exchange. Sirius hating on Snape wasn’t anything new. In fact, Lily had been expecting it. Even the accusation of framing wasn’t  that surprising. Their hatred was definitely reciprocated, and Lily wouldn’t put it past Severus to frame a person. At least, not anymore. But Sirius apologizing? That didn’t make any sense.

“What does that mean?” She inquired when the two boys just continued to have a silent conversation, “Why would Severus have a reason to frame you?”

“He wants me expelled!” Sirius exclaimed.

 “He hates us, Evans, isn’t that reason enough?” James answered at the same time.

This time though, it wasn’t. Lily knew there was more going on from the beginning. The Marauders had been doing their pranks for years and Dumbledore had never expelled any of them. Although this one had been a little more damaging than their normal pranks, Lily still had a difficult time seeing Dumbledore taking such extreme measures when he wouldn’t even expel students who Lily was sure were Death Eaters. In fact, he hadn’t even expelled Mulciber after what happened to Mary, claiming there wasn’t enough evidence. Even though Mary’s testimony should have been enough. So, what was different in Sirius’ case?

“There’s something going on and I will find out,” she affirmed, hoping they’d just open up to her.

To her surprise her words failed to have the effect she had expected. Immediately a look of anger clouded Sirius’s face. Potter shifted uncomfortably, running his hand through his hair in the way Lily had noticed he did when he was nervous.

“This is none of your business, Evans,” Sirius said, sending her a furious look Lily hadn’t seen in a while. It was a bad strategy on his part, murder-y stares have only ever made her more certain of her stance.

“Then I have nothing to do here,” she said, gathering all her stuff and moving to get up and get out of there. Sirius just continued to stare at her, calling her bluff, but Lily wasn’t one to give up easily and left without looking back.

“Evans, wait!” James’ voice echoed through the room and he came running to catch up with her almost at the door. “Please, come back. I’m sorry, Sirius is sorry too!”

“I’m not,” Sirius said, coming up behind his friend, looking completely nonchalant as it wasn’t his fate on the line. James only stared at him as an answer, “Stop being dramatic and come back, we all know you’re too invested to drop it now.”

“I’m being dramatic? I’m doing you a favour, don’t forget that. I can’t help you if you are keeping secrets that will compromise the entire case, it will make me look like an idiot in front of Dumbledore and I did not sign up for that.”

“Great, I don’t need your help if you can’t trust me and not pry. I thought we were friends!” Sirius shouted and then left again, stomping like a child. Lily just gawked at him, unable to believe he would act so childish.

How can he accuse her of not being a good friend when he was the one omitting information? For a moment, Lily was even questioning how she even became friends with him. She had better things to do with her summer than try to help someone who clearly didn’t want to be helped. James was saying something, trying to convince her to stay, but Lily wasn’t paying attention at all. Swallowing her anger she opened the door, ready to disapparate as soon as she left the perimeter.

“Are you just going to give up?” James’ voice reached her. “I know Sirius behaviour isn’t… the best,” he said. Understatement of the year, “But that doesn’t make him guilty. Is justice a privilege for those who behave in a certain way?”

Lily stopped in her place, looking back at him in fury. She knew he was right, whatever Black’s attitude was, it didn’t mean he should be punished for actions he didn’t commit. Lily was not a lawyer, not even a professor at Hogwarts who had an ethical commitment to help Sirius. No, she had something that was much stronger: moral integrity.

“Ugh. I hate you, Potter,” she sighed.

“Nah, you don’t,” he said back. And the fact that he could say that now, with a winning grin on his face, and have it be true struck Lily as something she should probably analyse at a later opportunity.

“If I’m going to continue helping you, I’ll need the full story,” she put her foot down.

“Yeah, I can’t do that,” he answered, his hand on his hair again, Lily just narrowed her eyes at him in disbelief, “I swear I’d tell you if I could, but it involves other people’s secrets. It’s nothing we could bring to the board.”

She could tell he was being honest. When did she start trusting Potter? Yes, they were friends, but trust… She sighed, knowing this was a lost battle. She was still curious about it and had no intentions of letting go, but she had other ways of finding out. Without saying another word, she went back to the living room where they were reunited. They pinned Severus’ name on the board she had conjured.

Sirius didn’t say anything but had a satisfied smile on his face. Lily didn’t enjoy it one bit.

“Okay, so Severus’ motive would be to frame you,” Lily said out loud, pointing to Sirius, “According to the house-elves he went there at least three hours before you; how would he know you were going to stop by later?”

Both boys seemed to finally stop at that question, not knowing the answer. If Severus had gone after Sirius, they could claim he waited for an opportunity.

“Maybe he’s a Legilimens?” Sirius said, writing it on the board, Lily just added a giant question mark next to it.

“Even if he were, you’d have to be thinking of going to the kitchens for him to see that,” Lily completed.

“I could have,” Sirius defended, “A midnight snack is one of my most precious activities, I think about it often,” his tone was humourless, and Lily couldn’t tell if he was just being stubborn about his theory or if he really did think about eating that often.

“Maybe he just guessed Sirius would go there?” James offered, “He does often sneak off to the kitchens at nights.”

“But do you go _every_ night?” She questioned, and both boys denied it, “Then it doesn’t work, he wouldn’t risk doing all of that just for you to decide not to go. Severus might be a lot of things, but he’s not dumb. He wouldn’t just leave this all to chance.”

“Maybe you are overestimating him,” Potter said. “How smart can he be if he decided that poisoning the food was the best way to go?”

“Exactly! How could anyone think _I_ had anything to do with it?” Sirius completed, exasperated, but Lily wasn’t paying attention at him.

“See, this doesn’t make sense,” Lily said, staring at the board, “Poisoning students was bad but they mostly just threw up a little, had diarrhea at most. It feels dumb, not dark,” she concluded.

In the summer after fifth year, Lily had thought a lot about Severus. About the choices they had both made and the paths had they followed, about all the little things she had ignored over and over again. She excused his fascination for the dark arts as pure intellectual curiosity, but she knew it was more than that. And once she stopped denying the truth, she could see how obvious everything had been. Severus was a dark person.

“People can be both, look at Avery,” Sirius commented, high-fiving James.

“Also, if he was trying to frame Sirius, why would he do something complex? That would expose his identity. He’d do something he’d think Sirius would do.”

“And he’d think Sirius was stupid! That’s brilliant, James!” She complimented him, earning her a huge smile.

“I’d resent this statement, but guess what, I don’t give a fuck about what Snivellus thinks of me,” Sirius stated, and then sat up straight, “Does this mean we are done? Snape did it, I’m innocent!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lily corrected him, “We have as much proof against him as they have against you. And we still don’t know how he’d be sure you were going to the kitchen that night.”

“What if Snape could predict Sirius was there?” James asked, turning Lily’s attention to him, “Maybe, hypothetically speaking, there may be a certain predictability to the nights Sirius would go to the kitchen, say, around that time,” he sounded nervous and kept averting his eyes to Sirius as he spoke.

“A schedule?” Lily tried, “Does this schedule happen to have anything to do with the ‘none of my business’ reason Snape would frame Sirius?”

“You really _are_ smart, Evans,” Sirius said, “Let’s go with that.”

Lily stopped to think for a moment, finally figuring out what they were saying. She had heard about Snape’s theories before of course, he spent the majority of their fifth-year whispering to her conspiracy theories about the Marauders. Lily had never taken them seriously; as with most things Severus had told her that year Lily had preferred to ignore them, including his opinions about werewolves. If she had wanted to confirm it, it would have been easy enough to take note of when Remus didn’t go to classes and when it was a full moon, but Lily never thought there was a reason to do so. Remus was her friend and if he ever felt inclined to tell her about it, he’d do so.

“Would that schedule happen to coincide with the moon cycle?” Lily questioned and the look of surprise in the boys’ faces was enough of an answer. “That’s what I thought. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone about it. But I’m assuming Sev-Snape knows about it for sure, then?”

“There was… an incident earlier in the year,” James was the first one to recover from the shock, “It confirmed Snape’s hypothesis, but it also landed Sirius on probation. It is why we think it was him.”

Lily didn’t know all the details, but this didn’t paint a good picture for Severus. This was a good motive, a lot better than just plain hating Sirius. He’d know Sirius would go for a snack that day and he had the opportunity to go before. And, as James had pointed out, he could have chosen this method to make it seem like Sirius was guilty. Also, Lily added to her mental list, Severus would have both the access and the know-how to make a potion that would poison the students but not kill them. Sure, it was a little more damaging than your usual marauder-prank but she doubted Severus would mind a few students going to the infirmary. Slughorn assumed whoever brewed the potion had made a mistake that made it more damaging but Lily knew how Severus enjoyed experimenting with dark arts. Perhaps it hadn’t been a mistake at all.

“This is great but… It’s all circumstantial,” Lily concluded. “I think we still have to go through the rest of the suspects before pinning it on Severus.”

“What?! Are you crazy? It’s clear that he did it!” Sirius protested.

“Who else is even on this list?” James took the paper from her hand and read it, “Snape, Mulciber, some ridiculous Slytherin who we never even interacted before. Yourself?! Do you want us to build a case against you, Evans?”

“Is this all part of your strategy to guarantee you wouldn’t get caught?!” Sirius yelled in feigned shock.

Lily only rolled her eyes as an answer. She had been quite surprised when she saw her name on the list for the first time, she’d go to the kitchens sometimes during the afternoons for a snack especially when her candy stock ran out. She didn’t particularly remember her trip coinciding with the day of the prank.

“If this was a strategy, it would be a really bad one. But we should analyse me as any of the others! I went there around 3pm of the day before the prank. The chocolate I bought at Hogsmeade ended and I was hungry. I don’t have a motive,” she said, adding her own name in the board.

“Maybe your motive was to attack Snape after your fight last year?” Sirius suggested, the glint in his eyes coming back.

“Why would she wait an entire year to do it?” James replied, “This is stupid. We all know Evans would never do it. Or the Hufflepuffs. Or these two Ravenclaws who I’m sure are less than 13 years-old.”

“You did say it sounded like something a third-year would do,” Lily pointed out. “But the potion used wasn’t the easy kind, even Slughorn had difficulty identifying all the components. I find it hard to believe a third-year could do it.”

“They _are_ Ravenclaws,” Sirius mentioned, but it wasn’t a valid point. Unless they were genius for their ages, they probably didn’t have enough knowledge to make that kind of potion. “And why are we not investigating Mulciber? He’s evil _and_ an idiot.”

“Too much of an idiot to brew the potion,” James countered.

“Snape could have brewed it for him though,” Sirius insisted.

“Isn’t he friends with Avery? Why would he poison his friend?”

“They’re Slytherins, why do they do anything?!” Sirius claimed but couldn’t convince Lily, “Maybe they were fighting.”

“I’m pretty sure Mulciber was also poisoned,” Lily pondered, “And now that you’ve mentioned it, we should check if Severus didn’t get sick as well. I doubt anyone would knowingly poison themselves.”

 Lily wondered if she should talk to Severus herself once she got back home. It’d been a long time since he tried to initiate contact with her, but he was very insistent after their friendship had ended. If there was one thing she was sure of was that Severus would always hold on to an opportunity to badmouth the marauders to her. This did seem to be his favourite activity. Lily was not sure it was worth it though, Severus would never confess it to her. He might also have heard she was helping Sirius defend himself, which would only make him more likely to get angry and just talk about how Sirius was guilty. Lily no longer had patience for that.

“Okay, who’s still on this list?” James muttered, scribbling his opinion next to each name. Lily looked over his shoulder, having to agree with his judgement on the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws’ innocence.

“There’s still Peter,” Lily mentioned.

“Yeah, right,” Sirius rolled his eyes.

“If we considered the Hufflepuffs, we have to consider him,” she insisted, wishing both boys were taking this more seriously. “The kitchen is big enough that you might not have seen what he was doing the entire time.”

“But it’s Wormtail,” James said like it was simple, “He’s our friend. I’d trust him with my life, of course he didn’t do it!”

“He wouldn’t do a prank without us!” Sirius added, “And even if he did, he’d confess after Dumbledore tried to expel me.”

Both boys looked angry just at the implication that one of their own might have done it, Lily put her hands up in surrender. She supposed they knew Peter a lot better than she did, he was probably the marauder she had the least contact with. He was mostly quiet compared to the other three and Lily always thought he was sweet. It didn’t sound like him to poison students.

“Then I think we can wrap it for today?” Lily suggested, tired from all the talking, “I’m going to write a letter to Madam Pomfrey, to see if she has a list of every student who got sick. It might be helpful. And then I’ll go through everything we have again to see if I can think of anything else. I suggest you do the same.”

She only nodded to the boys before getting up, receiving a wave back from Sirius who decided to look at the board. James followed her as she left the room, which she was already expecting.

“So, will you send me a letter when you’re ready to regroup?” James asked, and Lily nodded in confirmation, “I’ll try to convince Moony to come too, is that okay?”

“I’m surprised the other two weren’t here today,” she confessed, expecting the four of them to always be seen in group. “Does that have anything to do with that so-called incident you mentioned?”

“What? How do you know?”

“I’ve heard a lot of things this year, I didn’t think most of them were true, but…” she said.

 Snape had tried to talk to her earlier in the year, something about the Marauders trying to kill him, but Lily ignored him as she had gotten used to doing. She had also heard about a fight going on between the Marauders, but she never did see the four of them separate so she had assumed they were over it. Lily was not so sure anymore.

“Did Sirius try to get Severus killed?” She blurted out, James’ eyes widened in panic which confirmed she was heading in the right direction, “By sending him to Remus on the full moon?” she continued, trying to work out what happened, “This is insane! How can Dumbledore not have expelled him for that? No wonder he’s in such trouble now!”

“Lily, please…” James begged, going for her hands, “You can’t tell this to anyone. You have no idea what kind of trouble Sirius and Remus can get if this goes out.”

“I won’t tell anyone, you can trust me,” she swore, “I just wanted to understand what happened… Why would Sirius do that?! That’s so incredibly stupid…”

“I know, trust me, I agree and said that to him many times already. But he regrets it, he wasn’t thinking about what would happen and he’s done his best to not earn any detention since. Expelling him now for something he didn’t do is not going to help. Sirius needs to be at Hogwarts, with his friends. He doesn’t… He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

James’ entire voice and body language showed how intense he was about all of that. Lily had no intention of telling anyone or of stop helping Sirius, but hearing James talking, she was even more sure she was doing the right thing. She understood now why Sirius was acting that way, he was probably ashamed of his past actions and he was scared that he was going to lose everything because of it. Lily knew about his family, what would happen if Sirius was expelled from Hogwarts? Would he live with Euphemia Potter while James was away at school? If James was not there, who would fix Sirius’ mistakes? Was there anyone left who wanted to save him? It was James, after all, who had begged her to help Sirius. He was the one who was there trying to think of a way out. Not even Remus and Peter had shown up to help.

Not that she blamed Remus. From all she heard of the ways the wizarding community treated werewolves Sirius’ actions might have ruined Remus entire life. She was surprised Severus hadn’t made a scandal of it.

“Was Severus bitten?” she asked, the question suddenly on her mind.

“No, no. I found out about what Sirius had done before Moony got to Snape,” James explained, “He just got a scare. No lasting damage.”

“You saved him?”

“That’s a strong word… I just intercepted him and gave him enough time to run,” his hand was all over his hair again.

Lily had to take a few seconds to process this information. She never took James Potter for someone modest, in fact if questioned before this she’d say he would gloat to everyone about how he had saved someone. Pretentious was one of the top five adjectives she had used to describe him, but maybe it wasn’t so fitting anymore. Had she completely misjudged him? Of course, she had changed in the past year; so why couldn’t the same have happened with him?

“How did you do it?”

“Well, I can’t just give away all my secrets in one day, Evans,” he laughed. Lily saw the diversion for what it was and decided she didn’t need to know, after all.

James Potter was full of surprises and part of her wanted to find every one of them. But it was not the time.

 “So, I’ll send you a letter soon,” she said, dropping the subject.

Unsure how to say goodbye to him, she went for a hug. James seemed to be surprised by the movement but hugged her properly in no time. It was still one of the most awkward hugs she had participated in and Lily found herself blushing. Her brain was begging her to try to understand what was going on, but her heart wanted to think about how soft James’ hug felt and how it would have felt had it lasted more than two seconds.

Apparating had never been so easy.

 

When she got home Lily sent a letter to Madam Pomfrey, requesting a list of every student who had showed up at the infirmary, and then one to Remus explaining how his friends had confirmed his condition and reassuring him she had no intention on telling anyone else. Before this day, she’d have considered Remus Lupin the marauder she knew best, after all they had been partners as prefects for two years and it was inevitable not to bond after so many patrols. But after spending the whole day with James and Sirius, she had to admit that they were her friends as well. Even though it was a tense day and she did not care much for Sirius’s dramatics, she felt comfortable around them.

It didn’t escape her notice that they’d all but told her about Remus’ secret. Although she might not have realized it at the time, they could have tried to deny harder, but they trusted her when she said she wouldn’t do anything. It felt weird having someone trusting her so much. Since she ended her friendship with Severus Lily had been drifting through friend groups, mostly hanging out with her roommates even though she didn’t feel like she fully belonged to their group. For some reason, the thought that she might belong with the Marauders invaded her mind. She almost laughed out loud, that would be absurd.

James Potter’s face appeared in her mind and all she could do was sigh. Why did he have to act so, so… nice? It was much easier to ignore how cute he looked when she was hating on him. When she had a list of reasons why Potter was an idiot and she would never in a million years even consider going on a date with him. A lot of those reasons remained true, but they just didn’t have the same impact. People made mistakes, but they still deserve second chances.

And a fair trial! This was what she was supposed to be thinking about, Sirius’s defence, not some stupid crush on his best friend.

Lily turned her attention back to her work, writing down everything they had discussed during the day. Although they couldn’t prove Sirius was innocent, they had a lot of evidence that Severus could be the guilty one and, with the lack of evidence against Sirius, Dumbledore should cancel his expulsion.

 

***

 

“We have a problem,” Lily said as soon as James let her in, “Madam Pomfrey says Severus went by the infirmary, which pretty much counts as an alibi for him.”

“He could have been pretending to be sick though,” he argued, but his face betrayed his lack of faith in his theory. “This makes things worse. Sirius received a letter from Dumbledore scheduling a meeting for this Friday.”

It was Tuesday. This was not good news at all. She made her way to the living room they occupied the last time, leaving James behind. Sirius was already there, his feet up the table and almost falling from the chair. She couldn’t help but try to knock him off it, earning her laughs from James, following her not far behind, and an angry look from Sirius, who fixed his posture.

“Moony and Wormtail are coming to help today,” James warned her, as she started organizing her notes in the table.

“Good, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Sirius wasn’t happy to be told Snape had been sick and latched onto the “faking it” theory. He refused to even consider any other possibility, which only served to annoy Lily.  Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t have wasted resources on someone who seemed to be fine and she was categorical on who had been healed on that day, especially since so many students had needed help. Lily understood that it was much more convenient for Sirius to just believe Severus was to blame, but without enough evidence the best course of action was, instead, to work on ways to prove Sirius didn’t do it, instead of proving who might have.

“You mentioned you always go to the kitchens on the full moon,” Lily mentioned, looking at her notes.

“Yeah, which is why Snape could predict it,” Sirius answered rolling his eyes, ready to redirect the focus to the truly guilty.

“But what do the kitchens have to do with Remus’s… condition? Sure, you were hungry. But why would you have to stay awake as well?”

The question seemed to catch both boys unprepared. They looked at each other, having an entire conversation that Lily was not a part of. She continued to stare at them, waiting for an answer. She had simply accepted what they had told her last time, but when she was revising all the facts it didn’t make sense that they’d stay awake just because Remus was a werewolf. There was no way they’d go with Remus, that’d be too dangerous. But then again James had refused to tell her how he had saved Severus, maybe there was something they weren’t telling her.

“I’m not trying to pry. If Severus knows about it, why can’t you just tell Dumbledore?”

“I don’t think Snape knows,” James considered. “Which means he wouldn’t know you’d be in the kitchens,” he directed his attention to Sirius who just planted his face in his hand in exasperation.

“The question is still valid, why not just tell Dumbledore? If you’re just trying to be there for Remus, I don’t see why Dumbledore would have a problem with it.”

“It… might be illegal,” James said.

“Prongs!” Sirius yelled, hitting James’s arm.

“Tell me,” she asked, her eyes glimmering with curiosity. 

It would strike her later how much it didn’t affect her to hear they’d been doing something illegal. If anyone had told her this one year before, she’d think the worst of them. Definitely up to no good, thinking they were above the law. But, right now, she just wanted to be let in on their secret. She could see in James’s eyes that he wanted to tell her. And she wanted to know. Of course, a big part of that was curiosity, if they found a way for werewolves to hang safely around humans this would be a breakthrough in wizarding world; they ought to share it.

“Do _not_ tell her,” Sirius commanded, staring at his James.

Lily looked at him doing her best impression of puppy eyes, but James’s only reaction was to blush. She smiled at his reaction and was going to ask again when there was a knock at the door. Sirius immediately got up to answer it.

“Don’t fall for her tricks while I’m away!” he yelled as he ran to the door.

“I’m not doing anything!” She exclaimed, even though Sirius was already too far to hear it. James blushed even harder at it, his ears turning a little red.

She had never seen him blush like that, not only because his brown skin made it harder to spot blushing, but because James Potter simply didn’t seem to be embarrassed of anything. Anything but her flirting. Flirting. Was that what she was doing? The thought made _her_ blush.

Remus and Peter arrived in the room, laughing at something, with Sirius right behind them. Lily waved at both, trying to take her thoughts away from James.

“So, let’s talk about Sirius’s defence,” she said, focusing.

“Oh, is that why we’re here? I thought we were just watching you both make eyes at each other,” Sirius mentioned, rolling his eyes, “Since that’s clearly more important than me being _expelled_ and left to rot…”

“Come on, Padfoot. We wouldn’t leave you,” James said, apparently just now managing to take his eyes away from Lily, “We’d find a way to sneak you into Hogwarts anyway.”

Sirius seemed to find the idea delightful and immediately started to brainstorm plans in case he was indeed expelled. When the four started talking at the same time, they were a force to be reckoned with. Lily wouldn’t pretend it wasn’t entertaining listen to their delirious rambling, creating impossible scenarios. They were having fun, it broke Lily’s heart a little that she had to bring them back to reality. But she knew that Sirius’s being expelled wouldn’t result in any of the funny situations they were coming up with. She coughed, bringing their attention back to her.

“Let’s focus, boys,” she said, and started revising the case so Remus and Peter could catch up. “Do any of you have anything to add?” They all just shook their heads. “Peter, you were right there with Sirius, did you see anything suspicious? Maybe someone saw you guys were there?”

Peter didn’t look comfortable being the centre of attention. He shrugged, but Lily didn’t falter; he was the only witness to Sirius’s time in the kitchen, if he had seen something it could change the whole case.

“Come on, Peter, try to remember everything about that night. Who did you guys pass by on the way to the kitchen? Sirius mentioned you were fetching different food while he was focused on his sandwich,” she said, reading her notes on Sirius’s testimonial.

“I… I guess. I was just around,” Peter said, looking to his friends, “I grabbed some cake.”

Lily waited for Peter to elaborate on that, but he didn’t say anything else. He was a terrible witness, she sighed. She tried making some more questions to Peter, but only received monosyllabic answers.

“Wormy, are you even trying to help me?!” Sirius exploded when Peter answered two questions on a roll with ‘I don’t know’.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything else to say. It was a normal full moon,” he said, scratching his head. “Nothing different happened. Prongs asked for a sandwich, he sometimes does that. Marnie was preparing breakfast…”

“Who is Marnie?” Lily interrupted.

“Oh, she’s a house-elf. She always does the breakfast,” Peter mentioned. “I go there a lot, so I know the house-elves.”

This was new information. It wasn’t useful, but Lily took note anyway. Sirius didn’t seem to recall any of the house-elves names, but she thought this was normal for purebloods. She stared at Peter, trying to decide if she should question him. Part of her wanted to press the issue until he told her more details, but he looked so uncomfortable that Lily felt bad interrogating him. It was not like he was a suspect; if he had any valuable information he had no reason to keep it from his friends.

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything else, Peter?” she tried to sooth her voice as to not worry him. “If you knew anything, we could have you talk to Dumbledore…”

“No, I don’t think so… I’m sorry.”

“Let’s move on,” Remus suggested, “I wanted to take a look in your notes about other possible motivations.”

The next few hours were spent revising every single detail they knew about the case. Remus paid attention and helped her organize a line of defence, while the others tried to figure out some new information. James finished making a board with everything they knew, Sirius making it visually appealing.

Although Lily was focused on making sure she had not let anything slip by, she also took this opportunity to observe the four boys with new eyes. Even though she didn’t think she’d have noticed if no one had told her anything, she felt some tension between Sirius and Remus. But that seemed to be a small issue compared to the friendship they had, because despite their constant jokes they all remained there, doing some intensive study in the case for hours without complaining once.

“It’s getting late,” she said, yawning. “I think we’ve done everything we could.”

Lily would still prepare her speech at home, but this was a job she’d have to do alone. After planning where they’d meet to go to the meeting, Lily said her goodbyes. Just a few days and it would all be over.

 

***

 

“As you can see,” Lily said to the board consisting of most of her professors, “There were many students who had access to the kitchens, including myself. Many of those could have had motives, even if some may sound more likely than others. What we do _not_ have is proof that any specific student committed this transgression. All evidence against Sirius is circumstantial and I’d dare to say there’s even more compelling arguments against students other than him,” she continued, pointing to where Snape’s name was written on the board. “I am not here to accuse any other student, as there is no proof of their guilt, but I am questioning why is Sirius the only one who has to defend himself to the board, when no one else was even questioned about their whereabouts on that day.”

For the last two hours, the professors had been listening to their arguments on why Sirius shouldn’t be expelled. While Sirius had provided his testimony of what had happened, she and James had presented his defence, which contained a more organized compilation of their meeting’s brainstorm. Lily tried to make clear that there was no proof, Sirius had a lot at stake and his past actions shouldn’t be enough to condemn him. She even went as far as to bring up Snape and Mulciber’s suspensions as well to show Sirius’s wasn’t the only one whose background spoke against him.

“Yes, Sirius’s made a mistake which landed him on probation. But isn’t the point of probation to give him a second chance? A chance he has been honouring by not landing in detention once since it started. But he cannot continue acting within the rules if any wrongdoing that happens at school is attributed to him without proof. Expelling him wouldn’t be justice, it would only be shameful.”

James started to clap as she finished the speech, but Lily only elbowed him to stop. Dumbledore asked them to step aside from the room while he discussed with the professors the verdict.

Maybe she had been a little dramatic in her defence, but her only knowledge of law came from TV, movies and books. She wasn’t even sure if wizarding law worked this way, she trusted James to warn her if needed but then again how would he know? After working so hard in proving Sirius’s innocence, Lily really believed expelling him would be a mistake. She heard him talk about this “prank” and despite his constant claim that it was beneath him Lily could see his fear that this would be his end.

“How do you think it’s going to go?” Sirius asked them as soon as they were out of the door. “Dumbledore looked pleased at what you were saying but how do we know he was even paying attention?”

“Calm down, Pads, everything is going to work out,” James said, putting his hand on Sirius’s shoulder. “You saw how Lily went there, she nailed it! I wish I could have said more…”

“It wouldn’t help, everyone knows you’re too biased,” Lily answered, because it was true. “We’ve done the best we could, and we are right. If they couldn’t see that, then…”

“Then we’ll start a riot!” James completed.

She did not doubt he would.  Sirius seemed to approve his friend’s answer and looked calmer at that. Lily tried to maintain her posture and be positive, but she felt her stomach revolt inside her. She couldn’t stand the thought that she’d let them down. Someone should have stopped her from getting so involved with this entire thing.

Lily was starting to fear for the worst when the door finally opened, and the professors started filing out. McGonagall gave them a nod and what Lily thought was a tiny smile, but she couldn’t be sure, Slughorn gave wished her farewell saying he couldn’t wait to see her the next year, without even looking in Sirius direction. All the other professors passed through as though they weren’t even there. Lily wanted to throw up and, for the looks of it, the two boys felt the same.

“Come on in,” Dumbledore said at the door, and they all followed as they held their breaths. “I must confess I was surprised when Miss Evans came to me asking for a hearing. Although I had heard both Mr. Black and Mr. Potter’s thoughts on the matter, you were correct that I owed Mr. Black a proper trial,” Dumbledore stopped to think of his next words. “I was very pleased to see the work you’ve all done in such a small time. Miss Evans and Mr. Potter stuck to their friend’s side, showing not only their fairness and loyalty but courage in standing up for what they believed was right. It only made me surer of my choice for Head-Boy and Head-Girl this year.”

“Wait, Head-Boy?”

“I am sure you will act the same way for any other student,” Dumbledore continued, ignoring James’s question. “And now, Mr. Black, I’m afraid I owe you an apology.”

The entire room froze at that. James looked confused by the headmaster’s speech and Sirius was frowning, which made him look angry, but Lily thought he might be about to cry. She herself was trying to not think too much on what was happening.

“I told you I would give you a second chance after the incident with Mr. Snape,” he said, “But it is you who will need to give me a second chance. I made an erroneous assumption after what happened, in the hurry to solve the incident. I did not look properly into the evidence in front of me. This is a mistake I cannot unmake, but I will do my best not to repeat it. I hope you feel welcomed to come back at Hogwarts next year. To try to compensate for wrongly accusing you, I am ending your probation period. Should you choose to attend your last year in Hogwarts, you will be subjected to the same rules as every other student, with any misbehaviour resulting only in detention,” he concluded. “Within reason, of course.”

They all started thanking Dumbledore at the same time, too excited to wait for the others. Dumbledore laughed, but held up his hand, a silent request for them to calm down.

“Your letters should arrive soon enough. Together with both your badges,” Dumbledore said, pointing to Lily and James, “It will be a delight to receive you all in Hogwarts come September.”

With that, he escorted the three of them to the fireplace connected to the floo network. When Lily flooed back to the Potter’s mansion, Sirius was screaming and hugging James. As soon as he saw her there, Sirius pulled her into a hug, kissing her forehead in happiness.

“Thank you so much, Evans. I owe you my life!” he screamed, still hugging her, “You are officially part of the group now. No take backs!”

After yelling something that was incomprehensible to Lily, Sirius ran away from the living room, going up the stairs.

“I’m going back to Hogwarts!” Lily could hear Sirius yelling from the other floor.

Laughing, she turned to James who got suddenly quiet. He was looking at her with a smile on his face and Lily couldn’t help but smiling back.

“So, we won, Head-boy,” she said, a giggle escaping her mouth when James widened his eyes like he had just now processed that information.

“Do you think that was true? There’s no way Dumbledore would make me Head-boy, that doesn’t make any sense…” his hand was in his hair again, messing it even more. Before she could stop to think about her actions, she took his hands on her own.

James looked hypnotized by her. Lily’s heart was beating fast and she wasn’t so sure anymore if it was just the rush from winning. Yes, she was very happy for Sirius and she was proud of herself for doing all that. But her body seemed to be much more interested in the fact that she was holding James’s hand and he was right in front of her and she could just kiss him if she wanted to. And, damn, did she want it. It was a good day and she deserved to celebrate it.

“You’ll be a great Head-boy. Won’t be too hard, after all, you’ll have a great partner to work with,” she teased him. “And I’ll kick your ass if you don’t do your part.”

“I have no doubt of that,” he whispered, but his eyes were on her mouth. “Lily… I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done. We wouldn’t have managed it without you.”

“It was the right thing to do,” she said, “Besides, we’re all friends, right?”

“Friends, of course,” James’s hand stiffened on hers and he slowly let go of it, stepping away from her.

Lily’s heart closed at the movement. They were going to work together the next year, it wouldn’t be smart to start anything. No, not at all. The smart thing would be to say goodbye and go back to her own house, where she could wait for this euphoria to end. Then she’d write a letter to James to discuss head-students related issues. She’d maintain the friendly relationship she had started with the marauders.

But Lily was seventeen years-old, in the middle of a war and, honestly, always doing the smart thing was overrated. Life was short and there wasn’t enough time to overthink every action.

She had spent the last few weeks trying to get justice to happen, but it occurred to her that she herself was being unjust this entire time. Not with Sirius, but with James and herself. She wasn’t being fair with her heart, not at all. So, she swallowed her insecurities and moved forward, pulling James’s by his shirt and locking their lips. James froze at their contact, but it was not long before he was pressing himself closer to her, his hands on her waist, his tongue making his way into her mouth. She moaned into him and let herself melt in his embrace. James smiled into the kiss and Lily let go of him for a second to watch his face. Their foreheads were touching, but Lily could see James’s eyes were still closed.

He looked like she felt. As she had found her place in the world.

“You know, you never did tell me how you help Remus on the full moons,” she mentioned, stepping away from him. “Maybe you can tell me… over dinner, maybe?”

“Tonight?”

“Is that too soon?”

“Is that a date?”

“It could be, yeah,” she smiled, and James just pulled her into a quick kiss again.

“If I knew I’d only had to get Sirius almost expelled for you to agree to go out with me…”

She had a feeling Sirius would protest that statement if he was there. But he hadn’t come back from upstairs yet, and Lily had better ways to use her time alone with James than arguing.

Lily pulls him into another kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is the first time I've written Jily - or anything in the HP fandom at all, so I hope it turned out good.
> 
> It was (very) loosely inspired by American Vandal (a netflix's mockumentary), but you know, british, in the 70s, magic and not half as funny as the show. But I tried. 
> 
> Feedback literally feeds my soul, so please take a few seconds of your time to leave a comment if you can! I'll legally owe you a favour then. I did a lot of research about law for this fic (and by research I mean I read some wikipedia pages), so I know this is true. 
> 
> I'm @bisexualfelicity on tumblr, if that interests anyone!
> 
> Thank you,  
> Flávia


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